A couple walking at a mall during the Qixi festival in Beijing, China. The Qixi festival, China’s equivalent of St Valentine’s Day, is celebrated on the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar. Photograph: EPA Along the concrete lanes between the athleisure shops and gelato bars, atonal trance music oozing out of hidden speakers, a throng of young couples walked side by side or hand in hand. Every few steps they met hawkers selling flowers and other love tokens but most of the young women already carried bouquets, furry toys or balloons twisted into the shape of…